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Destiny Hot Fix Update *1-12-15*

An update was released for destiny today fixing and adding some stuff, and who doesn’t like destiny having new things? Activity Rewards Fixed an issue with Ascendant Materials no longer being a possible reward for Daily gold-tier public events In addition to other potential rewards, Weekly Nightfall Strikes can now award 9 or more Strange Coins PVP Maps Added to the rotation for Control, Clash, and Iron Banner* playlists: The Anomaly Asylum The Burning Shrine Iron Banner* Starts 1AM PST, Tuesday, January 13th Playlist weapon drops Level 32 Sniper Rifle Level 32 Auto Rifle Gain event standing to earn Legendary gear Level 32 Hand Cannon Level 32 Rocket Launcher Level 32 Gauntlets Level 31 Chest Weapons On the Sniper Rifle, Black Hammer, the Hive Breaker upgrade has been disabled until it is fixed to play nicely with the White Nail upgrade Raids Vault of Glass Exotic weapon drops (though still very infrequent) are now Level 32 Crota’s End Rewards Treasure chests now contain Radiant Materials The existing Pit treasure chest reward has moved to killing Ir Yut, the Deathsinger Pit Encounter Pillars of Light no longer launch players into the air when they explode Bridge Encounter Players will now be required to cross the bridge in order to complete the bridge encounter Players will now be required to wait for the bridge to be completed prior to crossing with the sword Deathsinger Encounter Fixed a rare case where the Shriekers would not spawn, preventing players from reaching the Deathsinger The Deathsinger now has a chance to drop Exotic weapons and armor, class pieces, and Radiant materials Crota Encounter Two Swordbearers will no longer spawn at the same time at the outset of the encounter Crota will now recover from his kneeling state after a player quits Fixed a bug that allowed players to remove the “Presence of Crota” using a Radiance Warlock’s Fireborn ability Fixed a bug that made the Oversoul appear destroyed to some players in a Fireteam when it was actually still active  

Microsoft’s Xbox One Wins Emmy Award for “Television Enhancement Devices”

Last night, during the 66th Annual Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, Microsoft won an Emmy Award for ‘Television Enhancement Devices’ thanks to the all-in-one Live TV, On Demand and media capability viewing experiences that are unique, offered by the Xbox One. Microsoft announced today they will be receiving the award in a short but sweet post on the Xbox Wire. They also re-assured how these TV features will continue to improve with their recently announced partnership with Sling TV. Above picture taken from Xbox One Reveal – May 21st 2013

Rock Band DLC Announced After 21 Month Hiatus

In April 2013, Harmonix ended an over 280 week run of DLC for the Rock Band store. Almost two years later, Harmonix have announced three new songs for the game. The new DLC contains three different songs – “R U Mine?” by the Arctic Monkeys, “Something from Nothing” by the Foo Fighters recent album (Sonic Highways) and “Shepherd of Fire” from Avenged Sevenfold. All three songs will be available to play in Rock Band 3 & Rock Band Blitz. The content will be priced at $2, £1 or €1.50 on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Interview with #IDARB Creator Mike Mika

 1. So mike what made you want to design games? I’m a child of the 80s. I grew up at a time when there were large dedicated arcades as far as the eye could see. It’s hard to describe to people who grew up later, but that was the beginning of it all – we were seeing videogames for the first time and it was magic. I was obsessed. I was going to make games no matter what. 2. Why did you decide to make a game like IDARB? I wanted to go back to the process of making games with my friends before it was a “job.” What would happen if I took away the deadlines, the planning, and the structure and just make a game for the sake of it and for the fun of it? Like I used to do on my old Commodore 64 computer. I really enjoy making prototypes. It was meant to be just another prototype, really. 3. How many people help work on IDARB and who are they? At the core, it was myself and Kevin Wilson. Kevin works with me at Other Ocean. We grew up together in Michigan. His older brother is one of my best friends. It’s kind of weird to be working with a guy you remember being born and coming home for the first time just doors down the street. The rest of the crew came on in varying stages, like Jeff Nachbaur, John Mathis, Glen McKnight, Frank CIfaldi, Chris Larkin, and Ian Sherman were the next wave. Among that group we got game play feedback, the tons of characters, the videos, the trailers, the demos on the road, etc. Chris was pivotal to getting the Twitch integration in and the website. Jeff, John, and Glen did a ton of characters, teams, and production things like ESRB ratings submissions, etc. Frank is our mouthpiece! He took the game on the road and helped get the word out as well as writing a TON of the text that is in the game, most notably the single player mode. Then there is Bob Baffy, the voice and sounds of #IDARB, another childhood friend. We’ve been making games since we were teenagers in high school. One of the rotating ads in the game is “Genetic Fantasia”, which was the name of my first little game company I co-founded with Bob. By nature of the game, so many people contributed beyond that team that we have a pretty extensive credits list. 4. So most of us know how random IDARB is with the random hashtags throughout the game and live streams. Was it hard to make that happen? Why did you guys decide to do the hash bombs? We had discussed doing something like Hashbombs in a previous game concept, one we would love to revisit, and is actually disclosed in #IDARB as Hiscore Hero. We pitched it to a few people and it just never got moving for various reasons, but we always loved the idea of it. When this game started to come together, the origins of it and the backstory were a natural fit for the Twitter integration. So we started to dabble with it and we experimented with it. I still remember when Kevin called me over to his desk to show it off. It was like he was Gandalf. We knew it was going to be something special. 5. So from what I heard your Aunt made a song for IDARB who is she?  And is there just that one song in the main menu or more? Yeah! My aunt is a singer and songwriter in Nashville. I used to go to Tennessee in the summers and see her perform and she’d take it to the Grand Ole Opry, etc. The beauty of Facebook was at work, because she saw what we were working on and she was like “I’ll make a song for it!” and sure enough, a couple days later we had the song that plays in the attract mode. It’s so crazy becuase it’s such an odd mix of people and talent that came together. I love that I am getting videos of kids singing her song. My aunt loves it. That was the only song she contributed, the rest are Bob Baffy’s. Keep your eyes peeled for the soundtrack release here: https://bobbaffy.bandcamp.com/album/the-soothing-sounds-of-idarb 6. Will IDARB have add-ons? If so how often? Do you guys have more achievements planned? Yes. As often as we can. Yes. The nature of the add-ons is still pretty speculative. We’re working on a bunch of things right now, from easier ways to share creations, to more customization options, more hasbombs, more arenas, and some new mechanics. I hope to have a decent update out in Feb/March that’s a little smaller but fixes a few things, followed by some new features in the next update that were produced from the feedback we’ve been getting. 7. Are you guys impressed by the reactions to the game? I’m absolutely floored by them. I honestly had a conversation in December with Chris Charla at ID@XBOX where I was doubtful anyone would even like the game. 8. How long did IDARB take to develop? It started in January, and was a night job up until around August. I’d put the kids to bed and work all night. Kevin would do the same thing. In August we started to spend more time on the game to get it in shipping shape. Throughout the year, the entire staff would throw in ideas and art, etc. We’d all rally around shows, so we’d pile on days before Game Developer Conference, E3, and PAX. 9. For us that don’t know what does #IDARB actually mean? It means “It Draws A Red Box,” which came from the text of my first tweet about the game. I think Dean Sitton, a friend of mine, was the first to make it an acronym IIRC. We ran with it. 10.